Parenting Check-In (11/17)

Jazibel

Good Morning Everyone!

How was your weekend?  Any new successes, challenges or milestones to report?  

QOTD: (Prompted by an interesting thread ;-) )  What ages would you/did you let your kids do certain activities?  Feel free to come up with your own examples (a few that popped into my head below):

- Watch TV

- Play in the backyard

- Walk to school 

- Go to the movies alone

- Go to the mall alone

- Have a cell phone

- Date

- Fly on a plane

- Stay overnight

Parenting Roster:

(Please let me know if you would like to be added)

@2brides – G & C born 5/18/06, other Mom is L

@Themommymonster – C (DS) born 2/18/09

@Mystjava – Little Bear (LB) born 3/31/10, other Mummum is Shawn

@winstan1 – J (DS) born 9/10 (currently 3.5 years old)

@Trisholio and @trisholiosboi – Proud foster parents to M born 2/6/12 and K born 8/22/13; baby Adalyn born 8/29/14

@jazibel – Kaden born 7/13/12 and Owen born 5/2/14, other parent (Aya) is EV

@newmompeanut – N (DD) born 2/12/13, other Momma is B

@CageyMack – W born 3/16/13

@JGY – Gabe born 3/24/13, other Mama is S.

@Stringy813 – M born May 2013

@Clairmeij – Alarico born 6/28/13, other mama is V

@Wallace323 – J and L born 8/8/13, surviving triplets born at 31 weeks

@Jrtmom – Henry born 8/15/13, other mama is L

@ATXmommas – Sebastian (“Ash”) born 11/21/13, other Momma is Z

@mwagner25 – Oliver born 11/27/13, other parent is L

@herbabymama‌ – C (DD) born 12/10/13, other Mama is K

@Sarahtrpt – C born February 2014

@AmandaG47 – Twin girls born 2/22/14, other Mommy is J

@Mamosey‌ & @Karlamo‌ – R born 2/25/14

@shameless370087‌ - Anthony and Sati, born 3/9/2014, Other mom is S

@Filmfanatic82 – Charley born 3/15/14

@2momsinCA‌ - B & O born 5/27/14

@KH826 – Will born 6/4/14

@redrockmama – M born 6/19/14, other Mama is J

@ball.and.chain – B born 6/28/14

@Flygirl1228 – Twins 7/25/14

@KLeigh1‌ - S born 7/25/14

@shelly2314 - Elise and Olivia, born 8/19/14, wife is M

@2MamazInSeattle‌ - S born 8/21/14

@rkbo‌ - Amelia born 9/22/14

@pauljl - Callie born 11/5/14

2brides

It was a fun weekend. No milestones but a good mix of exercise, playing with friends, and down time.

- Watch TV - they watched Signing Time videos at 18m or so. They probably watched occasional shows at 2y and at 3y, they watched 1 show in the AM while I got ready for work and 1 show in the PM before bed. Now? They rarely watch tv, but do watch a couple hrs/weekend of Minecraft videos on their iPod.

- Play in the backyard - we don't have a backyard per se - but have a field and playground across the street from us. They can go over and play alone as long as we are outside, but they still can't go over if we aren't outside. Perhaps in the next year or so. I trust them. I don't trust other people and the older kids in our neighborhood.

- Walk to school  - This won't be an issue with us as you have to cross a 6 lane street and walk 1.6 miles. But I think this depends on the neighborhood, streets, sidewalk access, and distance to school.

- Go to the movies alone - We've been talking about this because we can't wait for them to go see what they want to see while we see something else! Probably 12y.

- Go to the mall alone - 13y? 14?

- Have a cell phone - My kids have a iPod Touch and as of this weekend can message and facetime their grandparents, us, and 1 friend (we discussed with her mother before allowing.) A phone will come when they are without us enough that we need to check on them and they need to get a way to get ahold of us. Probably high school based on our schedules and where we live.

- Date - high school. Though I'm fine with group dates in late middle school.

- Fly on a plane - Alone?  11y? 12? With Attendant supervision.

- Stay overnight - they had their first sleepover at 5y - but that was because we had an out of town wedding to go to and they stayed with a friend and her son (also their friend.) Their first sleepover with a friend (where it was just a sleepover and not because we needed childcare) was at 7y. Now, their friend has a lot of sleepovers at our house (at least 1x/month) because my kids are petrified of her dogs.

JGY

Gabe is almost 20 months.

Nothing big to report here, no real milestones reached just increasing the size of his vocabulary and also the the velocity with which he throws pretty much every item he touches.  Yeah, so, that would be one of our biggest challenges right now.  We want to encourage him to develop his coordination, and we realize that we live in MN and there will be many days in the coming months where we absolutely cannot go outside.  So to say "That's an outside game" just doesn't work for us.  But seriously kid, we've gotta have limits and throwing things at the piano is one of them.  Argh.  Trying to differentiate between what IS and IS NOT an acceptable projectile is really a losing effort.  We need to figure something out.

I'm loving that G is telling us when he's gone potty now (um, yeah kid, we already knew, but still good progress).  I just wish he had some/any motivation to tell us beforehand.  I think he's a bit young still for actual potty training, but they work on it daycare so we're trying to be consistent at home.  Anyway, last night he sat on his potty for (seriously) about 10 minutes before getting in the bath.  Once there, he promptly peed.  Of course.  Ah well, it's still mostly amusing at this point.

Only other update for us is that we took the plunge and ordered sperm for TTC #2.  Fingers crossed this is a short TTC journey!

QOTD: I do want to say that so much of this is colored by who each individual kid is.  Since we're still figuring out who G is going to be, I imagine most of this will change.  Also, I've found that I'm definitely a different parent than I thought I would be in many ways (no judgement good or bad, just different), so there will probably be change from theoretical to practical there too...

- Watch TV - We let him "Watch" an Elmo video here and there (maybe 5 times total in his life) but we've already found it to be a problem so I'm thinking TV time will be pretty limited until he can demonstrate responsibility in other areas.

- Play in the backyard - I've actually (gasp) already let him do this for a few minutes at a time.  The kitchen windows look directly out onto the fenced back yard.  So really the only danger for him out there is himself.  But still.  I don't know that S knows I've done this.  I don't plan on bringing it up any time soon.

- Walk to school - Hmmmm, tough one.  Obviously it depends on where he goes to school.  If it's close and reasonable, I'd like to think by age 10 or 11, but I could see that changing.  I took the public bus in NYC with just my Sister from the age of 6.  But then again, that was the '70's.

- Go to the movies alone - Depends on the movie, I think.  Depends on how responsible of a kid he is.  If I think he's going to be a PITA to other moviegoers, I'll wait a while on this one.  Pretty sure by 15 or 16 it will be fine though.

- Go to the mall alone - UGH.  Can he just not go?  Seriously.  I think this one will fall into the "I can drive now" category.

- Have a cell phone - I'd like to wait on this but I have a feeling S will feel differently.  I really don't want him to spend his time ultra-connected.  But I also want him to feel as much like all the other kids as he can, given that he's already coming from a 2-Mom family which, while decently common in our area, still makes him a bit different.

- Date - Depends on who my kid is.  I want to have an open enough dialouge with him that he doesn't sneak off and date without us knowing, but I also want to make sure that he's emotionally ready to deal with what dating involves, to make good decisions, and to be respectful of others and their feelings and their bodies (it's just reality).

- Fly on a plane - Well he's already flown about 10 times, but alone?  Different story.  I think perhaps when he's about 13.  I wanted to say that I hope he never has to fly alone as a kid, but then I remembered that we're hoping to have the chance to send him to spend time with my family out east every summer.

- Stay overnight - I have no qualms about this one.  I'm fine with overnights pretty much whenever.  In fact, we're considering one some time soon because we have close friends with a boy about the same age and we'd all like to go out together and things would be easier if we just hired 1 sitter and didn't move either sleeping boy.  But of course that is totally about us and not at all about him, so I probably missed the point here ...

 

pauljl

I can't believe I'm in the parenting check in. You know, because I'm a MOM. 

Thanks for including us @jazibel ! 

Callie is 12 days old today! We are loving every moment. I credit this to the fact that C and I are BOTH off of work. This has made the transition so much easier. We've made a great team so far, and I'm hoping the trend continues. I'm sure stress will seep in once she goes back to work in December, but really..how lucky are we that she was able to take off a MONTH?

Right now we are still getting the hang of feeding and sleeping- the two biggest parts of our day Breastfeeding is going well and I'm so grateful. She had a slight tongue tie and was losing a lot of weight in the hospital. We had it corrected and since then- no troubles getting this girl to eat up! 

We are even getting pretty good sleep so far-- we split the night into shifts so that  C and I both get a chunk of rest. Of course I still get up to nurse- but she takes care of diapering and getting her back to sleep when it's her turn. Callie is sleeping in 2 to 3 hour chunks- all the way up to a 5 hour span one night (we were setting alarms for every 3 hours to feed- when she caught up with weight our ped told us to stop and let HER wake US. IT was a glorious five hours!) 

She's stirring now, so I better run. I'll try to get to the QOTW later! 

KH826

We had a good, but busy weekend! Seems to be my usual these days...

On Saturday, we went to a "Babies 1st Christmas Party" at Babies R Us. It was kind of lame, but it was an excuse to dress Will up in one of his winter sweaters, and it produced a few good photo ops. We also needed some things at BRU, so that worked out as well. We decided since we were out and about early in the general vicinity of lots of other things we needed to get done to just go for it on Saturday... so in addition to the BRU party and some shopping at BRU, we also took Reese to get groomed, went to Target, went to the grocery store, and squeezed lunch in there somewhere... it was a long day, and we were all tired at the end. Especially Will who really didn't nap much this weekend in general, which was a bit of a problem.

On Sunday, we went to my in-laws for the day, and my BIL and SIL came over while we were there. It was nice. Will showed off his super rolling skills and got some good snuggles with his grandparents and his Auntie (my BIL had been sick a couple of weeks ago and wanted to be extra cautious, so kept a distance, which we appreciated). We got stuck in some mega traffic on the way home, so it took us about 2 hours to get home... another long day!

In the milestone department:

*William is officially mobile! Not crawling, but a mixture of continuous rolling (can we call it tumbling?) combined with some backwards scooting means he can now get from one side of the room to another in about a minute. Ugh oh! He got what I am calling his "first big boy booboo" on Friday night, when he rolled over 4 time consecutively directly into the wooden leg of a TV tray that I had set up next to the couch. He bonked his nose and had a small little bump, but as of this morning it was almost gone. I felt AWFUL though. Baby proofing is now happening. yesterday he rolled across the room and over to the Reese's food and water bowls. Before I could get to him he stuck his hand directly into her water bowl. Yep, relocating those....

*Night time sleeping continues to be great, but daytime sleep has become more of a challenge. This kid does not want to miss anything, so he refuses to nap when there is anything going on. He fought all naps this weekend, and we have learned that we now have to actually be deliberate about "putting him down for a nap" during the day. It used to be that he would nap when he was tired no matter where we were or what we were doing, but that does not seem to be the case anymore. Looks like we will have to work harder at facilitating naps, especially on the weekends.

*He seems to be more aware of things he doesn't like. He is still a super happy baby (which I am so immensely grateful for), but he has been startling and getting scared a bit more recently. Certain noises especially seem to scare him. He makes the most heartbreaking face when he is scared and screams, but if one of us picks him up and snuggles him close, he settled down in about 10 seconds. I think he is just more aware of his surroundings all of a sudden.

In other news, we checked out the graco travel lite mini crib at BRU over the weekend, and we decided we wanted one, so ordered it on Amazon Saturday night. We got it for $86 with free Prime shipping. Done and done. We are planning to try it out this week after it arrives, and if he does well in it, we may take that to my mom's for Thanksgiving and officially pack the lounger away for baby#2. The lounger has been good to us, but my boy is just too big! We aren't ready for him to be in his own room yet, and we are embracing it, and just keeping him with us for at least another month or two and then we will reassess. I feel good about the decision.

We are also anxiously awaiting his 6 month bday to start solids! We decided to try and make a little bit of a big deal out of it, so we bought him some feeding stuff (plate, bowl, spoons, sippy cup and a book called The Hungry Monster). We will give everything to him on his 6 month bday and offer him his first taste of sweet potato. I am excited!   

QOTW: So, I feel like I am going to change my mind about a lot of these things as we have kids that get older.... also, my wife and I haven't talked through a lot of these milestones yet, so I am just not sure... my knee jerk reaction to a few of them is as follows:

*no younger than 13 for cell phone

*no younger than 16 for legit dating

*The playing outside, walking to school, etc. stuff will depend on the neighborhood where we are living then and how we feel about proximity to our house, safety of neighborhood, watchful neighbors, other neighborhood kids we trust, etc.

*The rest... ask me again in a few more years ;-)

Karlamo

Welcome @pauljl!  Glad things are going well for you three.

No real update here other than WE"RE NEXT ON THE SLEEP CONSULTANT'S LIST!!!!<:-P

There was a millisecond when we looked at each other and asked "do we really want him out of our bed?" Then he kicked us in the stomach and looked for a nipple.  So yes, we do want our bed back.  The money has been paid and we sent in our list of demands...er.. I mean concerns to her and await our interview and plan.  So the big thing will be sticking to the plan once we get it. We barely tried sleep training ourselves because we didn't find a plan that felt right to us and honestly when you're sleep deprived who the hell has time to read a 200 page book on sleep training?  Seriously, they need a Cliff note's version for those of us who fall alseep while reading because we're so damn tired! 

In other news, R crawled on all fours for the first time last night.  He was so slow and ackward doing it.   It's kinda nice to see the kid do something at a slow/normal speed rather than baby destruction mode like he normaly operates in.

QOTW:  Yikes all those big decisions that need to be made!  So in my short time as a parent I've realized that I can't draw a line in the sand and say we will never do.... or when he is.....old.  Much like our TTC journey it's a wait and see how we feel.  There were many things I said I would never do before I became R's mom, like co sleeping,  and then reality strikes and we had to stop and reevaluate how we want to do things.  We will have our non negotiables I'm sure but for many of these things I see a lot of fluidity going on.  I need to see how mature my son turns out to be and how crazy this world gets before I put an age on it.    How's that for being a mom, "let me think about it and talk it over with your other mom"

ball.and.chain

B is 4 months old.

Round 1 of daycare germs continues to plague us. I've been sick for over a week...I'll think I am getting better, and then I feel worse. Daycare called us last Thursday to say that B (who had been fighting a cold for a while) was inconsolable and wouldn't nap or eat all morning. I picked him up and took him to the pedi, who diagnosed Bronchiolitis. Apparently some babies end up in the hospital with it but most of the time they just fight off the infection and are fine. He's finally coughing up phlegm so I guess that's a good thing, although you can tell he doesn't know what to do with it when it ends up in his mouth (solution: swallow it, and it sometimes comes back up with the rest of the contents of his stomach. But as long as it's out of his lungs, I'm happy!).

We have been wanting to sleep-train him for a couple of weeks but wanted to wait until he's no longer sick. I'm afraid we won't get a big enough window before the next virus hits. I just want to get it over with!

I signed up B for the Gerber Photo Search. Totally not something I ever envisioned myself doing...but my MIL suggested it and when I saw that the grand prize was $50,000, I was sold.

B has started making crawling motions with his legs when he's on his tummy. He doesn't go anywhere because his torso is still on the ground, but you can tell he's starting to get the right idea. He's also more consistent about rolling over (tummy to back) as opposed to it looking accidental. He's not a huge fan of tummy time so I admit I don't do it as much as I should. This hasn't impacted head control since we hold him upright a lot, but think there are other muscle groups that aren't getting developed as much as they could be.

That's all I've got today.

Karlamo

ball.and.chain said:

B is 4 months old.

Round 1 of daycare germs continues to plague us. I've been sick for over a week...I'll think I am getting better, and then I feel worse. Daycare called us last Thursday to say that B (who had been fighting a cold for a while) was inconsolable and wouldn't nap or eat all morning. I picked him up and took him to the pedi, who diagnosed Bronchiolitis. Apparently some babies end up in the hospital with it but most of the time they just fight off the infection and are fine. He's finally coughing up phlegm so I guess that's a good thing, although you can tell he doesn't know what to do with it when it ends up in his mouth (solution: swallow it, and it sometimes comes back up with the rest of the contents of his stomach. But as long as it's out of his lungs, I'm happy!).

We have been wanting to sleep-train him for a couple of weeks but wanted to wait until he's no longer sick. I'm afraid we won't get a big enough window before the next virus hits. I just want to get it over with!

I signed up B for the Gerber Photo Search. Totally not something I ever envisioned myself doing...but my MIL suggested it and when I saw that the grand prize was $50,000, I was sold.

B has started making crawling motions with his legs when he's on his tummy. He doesn't go anywhere because his torso is still on the ground, but you can tell he's starting to get the right idea. He's also more consistent about rolling over (tummy to back) as opposed to it looking accidental. He's not a huge fan of tummy time so I admit I don't do it as much as I should. This hasn't impacted head control since we hold him upright a lot, but think there are other muscle groups that aren't getting developed as much as they could be.

That's all I've got today.

@ball.and.chain, that $50k should cover his debt at Fertility Solutions

ATXmommas

Y'all. My kids turns 1 in 4 days!!! It is so true what people say - the time goes by in a blink of an eye. Not during the cranky newborn days or when I'm (still) weary and rocking my boy to sleep for the third time in the middle of the night. But, we're here and I don't know how a year passed so quickly.

We had a fun weekend. Our good friend's baby turns one on Wednesday and we attended her birthday party on Saturday. Ash was a total ham and did not stop moving the entire time. Unless he was eating. Boy likes to eat. He's walking really well and was running all over the house, pushing a little toddler sized chair all over, shaking tables, playing with balloons, finding things to put in his mouth… the list just goes on and on. So far, he seems like a total extrovert like Z. There was one moment at the end of the party that he randomly put a crayon in his mouth and cracked everyone up. So, of course, he did it again. I'm adding a PIP of this. Attending our friend's party made us even more excited for Ash's party on Saturday. It's going to be about 20 people - only family and super close friends were invited. If this past Saturday was any indication, he will have a blast at his own party!

The not so good part of the weekend was his sleep. So, Ash's sleep has always been off and on. Mostly good with a few crappy spells. He's had a crappy spell for the past few weeks and an especially crappy spell the last couple nights. We're not sure what's going on. He is super congested right now and we did just have a pretty significant temperature dip, so maybe that's it? We're trying to keep it warm (but not too warm) in his room and keep him covered with a blanket (we just started blankets a couple weeks ago since he was so close to 1). Last night was pretty bad. He would let us rock him to sleep, but would wake up screaming if we tried to put him down. During one of the MON wakeups, I did nurse him and he would NOT unlatch. I finally broke the latch with my finger and he immediately started screaming. Ugh. So, we ended up doing a bit of CIO last night, which we really haven't ever had to do. I hated it, but I figured that he could scream and cry in my arms (because him latching on all night was NOT an option) or he could cry in his crib while I sat in the glider and talked him through it. He cried for about 10 minutes, then laid down and whimpered a bit. I debated whether I should lay a blanket on him or leave him be, but it was cold so I decided to cover him. Bad move. Stood up crying, so we went through the routine again and I just turned the heater up. Our winter bills should be lovely.

I've been down to two pumps a day for a few weeks. I dropped from 20 minutes to 15 minutes last week and am dropping to 10 minutes this week. Plan is still to be done pumping by December. Boy is not ready to give up nursing, though (and neither am I). He just in the past couple of weeks seemed to discover where I keep my milk machines and will actively try to pull my shirt up/down when he wants to nurse. Thankfully, this has only happened at home (and in the doctor's office this morning). Not sure how I'll feel if he starts doing this in public.

In other news, he is moving up to the 12-18 month room at day care on Wednesday. It's a transitional room where they teach the kiddos to eat at a table and sleep on a mat. Ha! To be a fly on that wall….

Also, I had a total mom fail. You know the shoes I showed off last week? Well, they totally killed his right pinkie toe. After about 3 days in the shoes, we noticed that his right pinkie toe was red and swollen. So, we left the shoe off for a couple days and went back to Stride Rite to see if he needed a wide fit - the original salesperson told us that his foot was wide, but then sold us a regular fit shoe. The second salesperson said the fit of the shoe looked okay and that it was probably friction from the socks that we were using that caused the swelling. So, we switched socks, let his toe heal, and put the shoes back on him Friday and Saturday. When we took his socks off on Saturday evening, I was shocked to see that nearly all of his skin was peeling off and that his nail is falling off. L Thankfully, it doesn't to bother him. We took him back to SR on Sunday and the salesperson that day looked at his foot (not the injury, just his socked foot) and immediately said he needed a wide. So, she exchanged his pair for a different pair that comes in a wide. The new pair aren't nearly as cute, but style goes out the window when it comes to not wanting to see your child's toe fall off. Poor thing.

Oh, one more thing and I'll stop rambling - we did take Ash to the doctor this morning because of his congestion and to check out his toe. Congestion is not in his chest (yay!), but she did prescribe antibiotics for the congestion and some draining coming from his tubes. She recommended Neosporin for his toe and no shoes until it heals. He weighed 21 ½ lbs. His one year well visit is not until 12/2, so we'll get official stats then.

QOTW: thoughts off the top of my head. I'm sure my answers will change over the years.
- Watch TV - very limited amounts at 2 years
- Play in the backyard - 4?
- Walk to school - 7? if we lived close by, but really depends on lots of factors
- Go to the movies alone - 12
- Go to the mall alone - 13?
- Have a cell phone - 12
- Date - 16
- Fly on a plane - not sure. I think I would be comfortable with it at a pretty young age because I feel the flight attendants would take good care of him, but would base this more off my kid's personality and comfort level. I would have hated flying alone as a kid.
- Stay overnight - not sure, but I think I would be okay with this at a young age.

JGY

@winstan1, you crack me up.  Thanks for the suggestions.  I think I will make some sort of indoor BBall basket so it's more attractive than throwing at the piano. And you're right.  I always forget that negative attention is attention, nonetheless.  But it's not like we ignore the kid, so I'd think he'd be more motivated by positive attention.  Sigh.  Anyway ...

I didn't know you guys were in WI!

 

JGY

@atxmommas - is Ash getting his molars?  G was a total mess when he got his, and while we had a small clue (endless drooling) we didn't really know what was going on until they popped through.  It was a nightmare of a weekend with very little sleep ...

 

ATXmommas

JGY said:

@atxmommas - is Ash getting his molars?  G was a total mess when he got his, and while we had a small clue (endless drooling) we didn't really know what was going on until they popped through.  It was a nightmare of a weekend with very little sleep ...

 

Totally possible, but I have no idea. Teething is so confusing because the drooling seems to happen way more often than when he's in the acute teething phase. Last night was a little better thankfully.

Jazibel

Phew!  Life has taken on a whole new level of crazy busy. I.can't.even.believe.it.

We had a bumpy weekend, full of ups and downs. EV worked the whole weekend at the office, or here at home. Saturday the boys and I went to a friend's daughter 5th birthday party and Kaden had a blast running around with the other kids, jumping on the trampoline and getting to eat some blue cupcake and drink juice.  However he did fall face first off their swing and split open his upper lip and scrap his nose. Ugh  It's terrible when he gets hurt. He was back up and running around within five minutes though, and his face is finally starting to look less painful today. People have been commenting on how incredibly active my kid is, and this weekend I really observed it. He is all over the place, non-stop.

Owen is now officially crawling forward and very proud of himself for it. He's been scooting for a while, but he loves crawling even better.  We have a pediatrician appointment on Friday so we'll see what his official stats are. He's wearing 9 month clothes and can fit into 12 month clothes (and wears some, especially sweaters, pants).  He is sooo heavy, I'm thinking he's 20-some pounds.  

QOTD:

- Watch TV: we let Kaden watch a very occasional show (mostly German language lessons or sign language) before two.  More recently TV has become a problem because I use it as a tool so I can make work calls, etc. Its way more my crutch than his, but I need to dial it back. He watches at least 1 show probably at least 4 days a week...

- Play in the backyard - Kaden's been playing in the backyard since he was 14ish months. I've always had windows/glass doors to keep an eye on him, and I'll check in. But I like that he gets to be independent. 

- Walk to school - this will likely depend on where we live and if there is a group of kids to walk with. Maybe 7ish.

- Go to the movies alone- 13 or 14

- Go to the mall alone - 14ish

- Have a cell phone - I'd prefer it to be 16ish but I'm sure it will be much much younger, just because we'll want to keep in touch. Likely around the time that Kaden (and Owen) start doing more activities without us. I will be using all the Parenting tools available to secure the phone..

- Date - 15 or 16

- Fly on a plane - 8?

- Stay overnight - young maybe Kindergarten or when he gets an invitation.

2brides

winstan1 said:

As far as the overnights go- hes had two with a good friend, but moment of desperation... he knows the parents very well. Also he stays with my Mom overnight the lions share of the time-- because I work overnights. Food for thought. My neighbors have a girl about J's age. The kiddo is VERY attached to the mom. Im positive they have never spent the night apart. #2 was to be a home birth-- but things went south and they rushed her to the ER- and the g'parents ended up staying with her the next night or so, while dad was at the hospital with Mom and new one. I live across the street and heard her from my bedroom SOBBING. Shes never spent the night away, nor with anyone else. Just a thought. If you or your partner needed to be in Emergency Room, will your little one freak out if they go somewhere else, or if someone else needs to stay? I put some thought into it, because when I was in the hospital having hysterectomy- I dropped him off knowing he would be fine. 

On the flip side - we never had anyone to leave our kids with (grandparents live far, no local family, or friends who were interested in having a couple of kids spend the night!) and our first overnight from them was when they were 5y (for that out of town wedding.) They were fine. They never blinked an eye that we weren't there. And at 8y they went away with friends for a long weekend and never wanted to call us the entire time! LOL. So, a lot of that is going to depend on the kid.

KH826

@2brides - agree that a lot depends on the kid. It also probably helped that they had each other, as well.

This is something that I have given thought too, because Will is likely to be around 2 (maybe a tad younger) when we bring home a sibling (*I hope*), and I think we will probably send him to his grandparents when we are in the hospital having the new baby. I have thought about having 1 or 2 "dress rehearsals" after we get pregnant to get him used to staying somewhere else. Although that idea makes me sad and anxious. BUT, we still have a long way to go. Remember I am the mom who just bought a new piece of gear so that we could keep Will in our room at night beyond 6 months. HAHA. Attachment issues?!?!

redrockmama

I started this on Monday as well. It's been a busy week. 

M is 5 months old today! It blows my mind that he has been alive for almost half of a year. Time is going by way too fast. I was looking at pictures of his newborn self and I can't believe how much he has grown and changed. I wish I could pause time for just a few weeks. 

He can almost sit up by himself and has done so for a few seconds at a time, then he topples over. He mostly loves "walking" He just started doing this cute little side step thing we made a video of it last night. Instead of walking forward he walks sideways,like a basketball shuffle. He finally belly laughed for the first time last week. He has the cutest laugh I love it. He is still stingy with the  laughs though and makes us work for them. Sleep is still miserable and I've had a migraine for 2 days  because of it. I don't know what to do anymore to make it better.

QOTW: 

tv: we watch netflix while he is sleeping sometimes, we don't have cable or anything. We'll probably let him watch pbs or something when he is 2-3 on a rare occasion.

play in backyard: we have super hyper dogs, so I guess it depends. We don't have a way to see back there without being back there so maybe 4? I have no clue.

walk to school: He won't be going to our neighborhood school so he can't walk...but if he did for some reason I'd say 7

movies: 12

mall: 13ish

phone: when he can pay for it, haha I don't know I struggle with this one and it will probably evolve as he gets older.

fly alone: I did it when I was 12 and I was not an independent kid so I think 10-12 depending on what he is like and why he would be flying alone.

sleepover: probably around 5ish

I swear I didn't copy @herbabymama's answers

Mystjava

sorry for the long mia..... been busy and I can't bump from my tablet.. (must be the story of my life?)

  

Anyway, we're entering a new milestone in our lives... we're buying a house... I just have to say this here, but not on facebook!  Oh gosh!  A house?  After living in a RV for ten years?  

Wow, we're so ready for this because LB needs his own space.  We also need this because we need "adult" time with each other.  I'm thrilled.. it won't happen until middle of January, if all things go according to "hopeful" plans... Fingers crossed! 

Other than that? LB is just growing and being himself.  He has lot of "screen" time than I like him to have, but it is a sanity saver for us.  We've been adjusting his bedtime routine and attempting to get him to bed at a much earlier time than before.  Yea, but nay... early to bed - > early to rise. 

One of the difficulties that we have been facing a lot of lately is that every time he goes play with other kids, he gets what ever bug they have... it is driving me crazy, but at least the last time - it was just a shorter bug than before.  (no, he doesn't attend day care or preschool yet.) 

I'm still having a rough time believing that he'll be five in March.... (btw - can someone remove the "date" from my line - just put down March 2010 instead?)   I love seeing the different response to the qotw... I still need to process this information for myself since we live in a rural area and our society is so much different these days from when I was a youth... 

Karlamo

Question for the group: when you say sleep overs at 5 or whatever age, do you mean family members house or your child's future friends?
The reason I ask is I'm concerned about knowing if they're are guns in people homes. I'm also freaked out about child molestation.
These are heavy topics I know but mamosey and I already talk about him being at someone's else's house without us around.

2brides

I answered based on spending the night at a friend's house.  The first time was with a single mom we've known for 15 years. The others have been with a family we are very close to and have known for 5 year.

But when they have had new friends come over for a playdate (families we don't know well) I put the gun thing out there when they drop off. "I know that i am concerned when the boys go over to other people's homes I don't know well yet - so I just wanted to let you know we don't have any gun...other than nerf guns...in our home. " It takes the pressure off the dropping off parent from seeming paranoid, invasive, whatever.

KH826

So, I think we will allow family sleep overs (Grandparents, Aunts/Uncles) sometime between 18 months and 2 yrs, and that is likely just to prep for him to stay with family while we are in the hospital having #2. We definitely won't be doing sleepovers with anyone other than Grandparents or Aunts/Uncles before 5 (I don't think).

I honestly don't see us allowing "friend sleepovers" unless the family is our family friend as well until well into elementary school.  

We have some family friends that my wife grew up with that have kids around the same age as Will. If Will grows up to be friends with those kids, I think we would be much more likely to allow a sleep over since my wife has known the other parents most of her life and I have known them for close to a decade. If we have been to their house, know them as close friends, etc., that is something we would consider.

In terms of Will's friends that he makes in school where we don't really know the family as well (we didn't know them previously), I honestly don't think we will be cool with that for a while... definitely not 5!

I too worry about the same things as you, @Karlamo, and more!

I embrace being a strict overprotective parent, and it is going to take a lot to change my mind... I don't want to shelter my children to the extent that they miss out on things, but I will be conservative in my parenting, and I don't think that is a bad thing.

Karlamo

stringy813 said:

M has spent the night at grandparents w/o us - so thats been done.  As for with friends, we will likely be pretty picky as to knowing the other family well - especially at first.  In middle school/teen years, it will be harder. But I have no clue how to deal with those years anyway!

BTW @Karlamo - you are near Boston right? WHo is your sleep consult with - we are still on a wait list.

Gentle dreams. We just got the call Friday. We waited 2-3 months. She has other colleagues she could have referred us to but we took her sleep workshop at Mama and Me and loved her approach.
Btw if I was a sleep consultant I'd be charging $500 for these sleep plans!!! She could have told me a thousand and we would have wrote the check. There's no price for sleeping 7 hours straight


This thing better work.

Karlamo

@stringy813‌
blockquote class="Quote" rel="stringy813">

Karlamo said:

stringy813 said:

M has spent the night at grandparents w/o us - so thats been done.  As for with friends, we will likely be pretty picky as to knowing the other family well - especially at first.  In middle school/teen years, it will be harder. But I have no clue how to deal with those years anyway!

BTW @Karlamo - you are near Boston right? WHo is your sleep consult with - we are still on a wait list.

Gentle dreams. We just got the call Friday. We waited 2-3 months. She has other colleagues she could have referred us to but we took her sleep workshop at Mama and Me and loved her approach.
Btw if I was a sleep consultant I'd be charging $500 for these sleep plans!!! She could have told me a thousand and we would have wrote the check. There's no price for sleeping 7 hours straight


This thing better work.

OMG thats whose we are on too.  Now you have to tell me everything!! And yes, I was surprised it only cost a hundred and change- I was seriously expecting a 700 dollar charge. And likely would have paid it but been really demanding of results from her.  She told us to take the sleep workshop at Diaper Lab (thats where I found her name) - but we are dealing with a toddler who has multiple issues, so I felt like the workshop was going to be geared much more towards infants.  Was it?

On a funny note my wife was sad that it was all email based. I think she was expecting supernanny to come spend the night. I admitt that would be nice.


I too wanted her to show up at 7pm and stay till 7 am for a week straight and do it for us. No such luck.
She sends a form to fill out about what's going well ( nothing) what do you want to fix (I just want to sleep 6 hours straight, last time this happened was Feb 24. No lie), what does the night routine look like etc.

We have multiple issues as well and gave her a laundry list of stuff we need to have happen. We told her our ultimate goals but are comfortable phasing into them so poor R isn't whip lashed by being kicked out of our bed with no nipple to be had. He already has no idea what's coming.
We are also tackling naps too.

Workshop was full of zombie parents with crying infants trying to focus on a pp presentation. Oldest baby there was 8 months. Her presentation sucked but she knew her stuff and everything she said was like a light bulb going off for us. We tried incorporating some of her tips but we were still in the newborn haze at the time and were trying to keep our heads above water. I'll keep you posted when we get the plan and how it goes. Hope you're next. She must have tons of clients!!

redrockmama

I answered based on who I would trust to have M over for the night. I'd need to have some serious convos with my mom before let him sleep over there, but I have friends who I wouldn't hesitate to let keep him overnight. With school friends we will definitely need to meet the parents before, probably a few times. I never thought about the gun thing, J has them, but it's a good point. I spent the night with friends starting in Kindergarten and my parents were way overprotective so it seems reasonable to me. We will teach M about safety and make sure he and the parents know he can come home any time for any reason. 

Karlamo

@2 brides. I like how you handle the gun issue. I'll be stealing that!

JGY

@karlamo @stringy813 - You guys crack me up.  You know I've been there and I totally get it.  I think one of the biggest things that I gained from our sleep consultant was empowerment.  I had to shift my thinking a bit as it pertained to G's experience, but through the consultant I felt more able to do that. 

It's likely not going to be an easy time, but you will get through it and so will R and M.  And I'll be here to cheer you on along the way!

And I promise, as with most things related to our kiddos, the minute things change for the better you will forget how difficult they ever were.  I often find myself looking back and thinking "That wasn't so bad ... "  Hah!  Yes it was.  But if we actually remembered how bad it was, no one would ever have #2!

Good luck!

Karlamo

JGY said:

@karlamo @stringy813 - You guys crack me up.  You know I've been there and I totally get it.  I think one of the biggest things that I gained from our sleep consultant was empowerment.  I had to shift my thinking a bit as it pertained to G's experience, but through the consultant I felt more able to do that. 

It's likely not going to be an easy time, but you will get through it and so will R and M.  And I'll be here to cheer you on along the way!

And I promise, as with most things related to our kiddos, the minute things change for the better you will forget how difficult they ever were.  I often find myself looking back and thinking "That wasn't so bad ... "  Hah!  Yes it was.  But if we actually remembered how bad it was, no one would ever have #2!

Good luck!

@JGY and @stringy813‌, you both realize we have the worst sleepers and we will soon get our precious sleep back only to be dealing with kid #2 in possibly 10 months!

Hopefully we have paid our dues to the sleep gods and baby #2 will STTN at 2 months!

Jazibel

Haha this made me laugh. I got 2.5 hours of non-consecutive sleep last night between my two kids. Ugh, this has been happening on and off for a couple of weeks. Two under two??? Is there a sleep consultant for that?!?

2brides

As a parent of a former "refuse to STTN kid" (until the age of 3.5 YEARS!)  I commiserate with all of you. Sleep deprivation sucks. It sucks the life out of you. But there is hope - that kid of mine who woke up crying every.f'ing.night between 12a-4a (and who refused to go to sleep unless L was holding his hand and was still taking 3 bottles/night at 12m) is now my kid who willingly puts himself to bed early (before 8pm) and only wakes me up in the middle of the night if he is sick. And while he is still an early riser (6:30am is late), he can get up without me. On the nights is is sick and doesn't sleep well and I am up a lot with him, I can't believe that we did that night after night for years. Good for all of you for tackling the problem early!!!

JGY

stringy813 said:

herbabymama said:

I'm loving the sleep consultant conversation! I'm looking into it myself and in the Bay Area there are a ton at all price ranges... @Karlamo‌ and @stringy813‌ please keep us posted on how it goes! Start a new thread maybe when you have an update. I'd love to read it! Last night, to get our 11 month old to sleep we tried: -nursing -rocking -lying in bed with her (Scream, scream, scream, she doesn't want to go to sleep) -go up played Repeat: 3 times until 10pm we decided to take a car ride (the only humane way of restraining my child, I always think) Scream, scream, scream in the car seat until she falls asleep (about 20 minutes) Right now she is snoring next to me going on 8 hours without waking. The going to sleep part is the fight. I think I'll call a consultant as there will likely be a wait list!

I have little to no hope that it will help, but @JGY's story tells otherwise.  Currently we are also dealing with bedtime resistance. That used to be the easy part and overnight hard. Now she wakes up once overnight and joins us in bed and sleeps the rest (which is grand compared to 6 months ago).  But bedtime has been taking 3 hours and involving tears for everyone. I figure if the sleep consultant fixes one thing it will just morph to something else.

Is there an 18m sleep regression?

There IS an 18m sleep regression.  We weathered it without too much disruption.

So, the thing is, when I say that the sleep consultant made me feel more empowered and thus I was able to take some steps to enact change, I should probably be clearer.  The change that I had to make involved some things that I had not previously been comfortable with (ie a fair amount of crying).  But she did give suggestions that helped to make it bearable, and really helped me see that crying for what it was - G wasn't scared or uncomfortable or hungry.  He was angry and upset because this (going to bed/sleep) wasn't what he wanted to do.  And, to be fair to him, he probably wasn't entirely sure that he knew how to do that ... go to sleep ... without boob.  One of the comparisons made by the sleep consultant that resonated the most for me, was that when G would wake in the middle of the night and want the boob, it's because nursing him all the way to sleep every night was a lot like an adult falling asleep with a big fluffy pillow. Then waking in the middle of the night to find that someone had pulled that pillow out from under them.  It's hard to readjust to be comfortable again without that thing that you rely on.

Another thing that really helped me, happened kind of by accident.  I had a really hard time not running right into the room at night every time G woke up and cried a bit.  I was operating under the impression that if I got to him quickly enough and shoved my boob in his face, he might avoid waking ALL the way up and I'd get him back down faster which would lead to more sleep for everyone (which we were desperate for). And that very well may have been true.  However I never gave him a chance to actually settle himself.  I couldn't decide how long was long enough to let him work on it, so I just erred on the side of FIX THIS NOW.

Anyway, one night S convinced me that I should wait a bit before running in there.  G was stirring and whining and crying a bit (not a full on cry) and I said "I wonder why he's crying?  I wonder what's wrong?"  (I truly believed something must be wrong) And S said "He's crying because he doesn't want to be awake; he's crabby that he woke up and he just wants to go back to sleep.  Much like you when you wake up in the middle of the night."  She was right.  I let him toss and turn for about 5 minutes and then he was done.

I totally get that these situations are our own.  And let me tell you there were plenty of times when G wasn't going to be able to settle himself back down to sleep.  He was up.  For hours.  And we DID spend many nights with me lying on the floor next to his crib, while he made it clear that he disapproved of the new routine.  But we made it through and one of the things that kicked me into gear was getting that consultation, and hearing the steps to take from someone that I KNEW understood what I was going through and agreed with my desire to avoid a total CIO approach.

Anyway, I've gotta run to a meeting but I'll reread later and if I left anything out I'll be back.